


How to outshine the morning sun

by gooseontheloose



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Fluff, Fluff, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:43:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21098174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseontheloose/pseuds/gooseontheloose
Summary: John Laurens is gay. He hasn't been able to say that loud for most of his life. But now he can, and he does. And the video goes viral. He has no one to blame but himself. He should've kept quiet, and now the world he's built for himself is falling apart.Henry Laurens is running for president, and he won't let some video of his faggot son stop him.





	1. Chapter 1

All John can hear is the thud of feet on the pavement, the dull rumble of chanting, words he can’t quite form, words he still can’t quite let himself form. He still can’t quite believe he’s here. He feels like an imposter, feels that he sticks out like a sore thumb. Feels like the city he was supposed to make his home, the people who he was supposed to make his family aren’t quite his yet. It’s a far cry from the empty eyes he grew up with. The empty eyes which stare back at him each day.

He remembers the day Alexander bought that green jacket, said he chose that colour because it reminded him of his favourite eyes in this whole world. And John’s smile had felt like cotton, his skin had prickled with that feeling that you get right before the impact. Because he’d stared into those eyes too many times. Seen the anger there. Seen the darkness there. Seen the hatred there. How blessed he was to have inherited his mother’s good looks. Shame he had his fathers eyes. But maybe that wasn’t the only reason that the colour green set him on edge. Maybe it’s because green was so Alexander. So the man he loved. So the man who’s gaze made his skin crawl, because men shouldn’t look at men like that. It’s not right. It’s not natural. Maybe because green is the colour of envy. Green is the colour he sees when a man and a woman share a kiss on the street corner, too deep and too long. Green is the colour he sees when two hands intertwine like God made them for each other. Green is the colour of everything he should be but he isn’t. He shouldn’t be this way. His father taught him better, with his words and his sayings. And his fists. Green is the colour that reminds him that he choses this every day. Green is the colour of sickness. And a sickness is what he has. So sick and perverted that it poisons him. Poisons everything. And he can’t forget it. Every day that he looks in the mirror he’s reminded of that fact. Green is the colour of his eyes, the colour of the unshakeable truth of his life that he’s broken. Broken beyond repair. Broken because he knows it’s all wrong. Knows it isn’t true. The words that were painted onto his skin in bruises aren’t what he is. They don’t define him. Knows that love is love is love. But green reminds him of home. Reminds him that he can’t escape this. Can’t escape the fact that his own existence makes his skin crawl.

“Are you alright?”

Alexander is breathless, hair loose and choppy around his chin. Alexander’s smile is contagious, his joy tangible. He seems so free, so energised and whole. Another thing which makes John see green. He focuses on the smudges of glitter on Alexander’s cheekbones, on the gold earrings dangling down, swinging back and forth as Alexander turns to face him. He’s conscious of the glitter on his own face, decorating his eyelids and his forehead and his neck. It didn’t feel like much in the flat. Felt like a laugh, like a joke. Now it feels as heavy as paint. Feels like tar against his skin.

“Just thinking of home”

Alexander’s smile falls, just a fraction, his eyes dull. “We can head back, if it’s too much?”

And John knows he would, knows he’d leave the joy and the beauty behind, leave this march, the one he’s been looking forward to for weeks, just to appease John’s gloom.

“It’s fine”. The crack in his voice betrays that is it is very much not fine.

Alexander doesn’t look convinced. He presses a soft kiss to John’s split knuckles, running his fingers across the mottled scars and scrapes.

“We both know that if your dad was here right now, I’d kill him”. The tone is too dark, too matter of fact to be a joke. “But he’s not, hey John, he’s not here”

“I know.”

And John does know. He knows how much Alexander despises his father, not just as his father, but also as Senator Henry Laurens. He knows that Alexander wouldn’t hesitate

“I just can’t shake it.”

“I understand, hey John” Alexander squeezes his hand again, bringing him away from his spiralling, back to earth. “I understand more than most people might. You think you’re the only one here’s who’s scared? We’re all terrified. Scared out of our minds. But that’s the thing, you’ve just gotta pretend. You’ve gotta plaster on that smile and that body glitter, and stand proud, stand proud like you’ve never been afraid in your life. The second they see the crack in the armour, that’s when they sink you”

John stares at Alexander. Alexander stares at John.

“They’re not gonna sink me.” He whispers, barely audible.

Alexander’s smile falls back onto his face like it never even left. John tries to mirror the expression, but it feels more like a grimace.

“They’re not gonna sink me”. This time louder.

A girl with short pink hair turns and gives him a smile. “Hell yeah” she agrees, “They won’t sink me neither”

And he smiles at that. Smiles at the girl who hasn’t got a clue what he’s on about but agrees with him anyway, just because. Smiles because this is a day for community. For solidarity. For family. He still sees green. But he also sees red and orange and yellow and blue and purple. On the banners, on the faces of the people marching, behind his own eyelids. He sees green, but it doesn’t scare him anymore. And he gets that feeling, deep in his chest, bubbling up. The feeling they might call Pride.

Alexander pushes to the front. He’s all sharp elbows and sharp words and sharp fury, dragging John behind him. There’s a collection of cameras, and reporters, dressed in pencil skirts and blazers, all drab greys against the backdrop of colours. It looks like someone’s spilt a can of paint on the tarmac but in reverse. A splodge of dullness on the explosion of bright. John is reeling still reeling from the marching, even though they’ve come to a halt at these barriers. He’s feels giddy, feels almost as happy as the fake smile he plastered on his lips earlier. Feeling almost like he thinks you might be meant to. Alexander gets right up to the railings, presses himself against them, teetering over the edge.

“Hey” he hollers at the collection of newscasters, “Over here”

A woman walks over, after a brief hesitation.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Reporting the news” sneers the woman, tight lipped.

She looks as if she would rather be anywhere but here.  
It takes John a moment to realise why.  
Oh.  
Oh.  
It’s like he’d almost forgotten. Forgotten what they were marching for, what they were marching against. Forgotten that a woman might sneer at the fact that Alexander is clasping his hand, fingers intertwined. Forgotten why that might be a problem.

“Well then I’ve got something to say.” Says John, after a beat, using his politician voice.  
It rings out loud and clear above the clamouring of the crowd. His father taught him well. His father taught him… His father taught him… He shakes it off. Some things are best not dwelled upon.

There’s a camera trained on him, he can see the flashing of the light. Alexander is bursting by his side. Bursting to rant and ramble and say the millions of things he probably has prepared for moments like these. Alexander has a way with words, crafting them like fine silk. But John has to do this. And Alexander is letting him. Alexander can tell this is important. Tell that this moment needs to belong to John, so he lets him speak.

“I have a message. A message for Senator Henry Laurens”

The woman who sneered rolls her eyes slightly at that. She thinks she’s heard it all before. Thinks he’s just another gay art student who has a bone to pick with some homophobic southern senator. Her disgust fuels him somehow. Her disgust makes him feel right at home. They say disgust is green after all.

“This is John, in case you’d forgotten. Guess you thought you’d beaten the faggot out of me. Well you were wrong. That’s right, Henry Lauren’s son is a fucking fairy. How’s that for irony”

The crowd is silent.  
Alexander’s head is heavy in his own.  
His own words reverberate around his skull.  
Shit. Shit. Shit.  
What did he just do?  
What did he just do? Shit.  
He feels sick.  
Sick to his stomach.  
The camera light blinks at him.  
And he closes his eyes.  
Breathes in and out.  
He feels like he’s sinking.


	2. Chapter 2

“Senator Laurens’ presidential bid has hit a hurdle in the form of a viral video of his son at a pride march. Let’s watch this clip again and discuss the implication of it for the Senetor and the Republican party as a whole”

Martha watches the screen unblinkingly. John appears. His hair is longer than she remembers, with thick curls running through it. Nothing like hers and the rest of her siblings. But then again, John was never like any of them at all. They were blonde and pale and straight, in every sense of the word. He was dark and curly and gay. Her brother is _gay_. She’s seen the clip already. Everyone has seen the clip. Seen it and dissected it and torn it to pieces. People didn’t believe he was really Henry’s son at first. How could he be. He was _coloured_. Another word that seems poisonous on her tongue. The people at her school spit it like venom. Their matching white faces, the ones which match her own, all stare at her, silently judging her for her coloured brother. Nobody believed he was Henry’s because of his brown skin and curly hair, and his perfectly neutral sounding voice, without a hint of a southern accent. Well they were quickly corrected on that. Photos of younger John, in suits and ties, with a blank look in his eyes, and a shirt buttoned right up to his chin, sleeves pulled right down, standing side by side with his dear father appeared. And the internet couldn’t get enough.

It was never in public. Henry never let that secret shame, that shameful secret get public. It was all behind the safety of closed doors. There were a lot of closed doors in her childhood. She quickly learnt it was better not to open them. The one time it hinted at being out in the open, the one time the jagged edges of Henry Laurens were almost exposed to the daylight was years ago. Martha still remembers it, in technicolour detail. She’s not sure why, maybe because that was the day she realised that it wasn’t quite normal. That John wasn’t quite normal and neither was her father. It was some Republican event, to which Henry had dragged his children, before he quite realised the implications of having a son who looked like John. They all scrubbed up nicely, Martha in her bottle green silky dress which John said made her look like a princess, her blonde hair braided down her sides, in two neat pigtails. Henry went place his hand on John’s shoulder, for a photo or something, and John flinched, jolting away from his touch. It was noticeable. Martha remembers a woman staring at them, blue eyes calculating, the corners of her mouth down turning.

“Why is that lady looking at us?”, she asked.

No answer. Henry’s jaw just set into a thin line, and he muttered something at John so low and rough that it made her gasp. She can’t remember what the words were, but they made John’s spine straighten, his jaw clench, his lower lip quiver. She remembers thinking how young he looked. How broken her big brother, her protector, looked. She didn’t know the half of it.

“Don’t you dare cry boy, we don’t want these nice men thinking you’re some kind of pansy”. Henry clapped down his hand on John’s shoulder again, much harder this time, and John took a shuddering breath, and smiled.

Maybe she remembers it because that’s the first time she saw it, first time she heard it. The next day, she remembers he had a dark purple bruise on his chin, like the marks she got where she tripped over the brick wall in the back garden. Maybe it’s because she was young and inexperienced, but she believed when he said he tripped. But there’s no excuse for the fact that the older and wiser she got, she kept (pretending to) believe him.

But John’s hair was longer, and Martha can’t stop clinging to that detail. That detail which proves how little she knows her own brother, her own flesh and blood. His hair was longer and he was holding hands with a man Martha didn’t know. He was holding hands with a man. A man with fire in his eyes and glitter on his cheeks. John was holding hands with a man, and John was calling himself all these words that Martha had heard too many times. Words Martha had heard her father yell at John, spit at John, sneer at John. And as for the beating… Martha wished it wasn’t true. She wished with every piece of her that she hadn’t heard the muffled sound of fists against flesh through the wall, wished she hadn’t seen the shape her fathers fists made when they made impact with skin on her brothers back when John’s shirt rode up as he reached up to get something from the top shelf. More than that, she wished she hadn’t just let it happen. She wished she had done something sooner, told someone, been brave, stood up for what she knew was right. Wishes she hadn’t believed his cotton lies and watery smiles.

But she’s a coward.

That’s why when she hears Henry walk into the room, she quickly switches the channel, pretends to be texting on her phone. She’s too afraid to face this.

She doesn’t mean to read about it later, it’s just that it’s everywhere. She can’t get away. The headlines glare at her. The video clip tweeted and retweeted, shared and posted. She scrolls through the replies, the tepid mixture of homophobia and rainbow flag emojis, the mixture of “if he was my son I’d have more than beat him”, and “Brave words but sadly unsurprising, these Republican Senators have yet to join the 21st Century”

She sees a tweet, in among the garbled nonsense and opinions upon opinions, all words that should mean nothing. Do mean nothing. It’s not like all of their existences have been torn apart, with the ugliest truth of all finally brought to light. It reads simply

“And they wonder why we march.”

For some reason, that’s when the tears start.

They wonder why we march.

Henry is the reason they march, and in her complacency, she is also the reason they march.

She refreshes the page, a new story. A new headline appears.

“We Found John Laurens, And Here Is What He Had To Say”

A video. This seems like a bad idea. Is a bad idea. What did he say? There’s only one way to find out. She clicks. She feels ashamed that this is the most she’s seen of her own brother in months, that she’s connecting with him through articles. That she can’t bear to speak to him, because what if he asks why, why she didn’t stand up for him, why she didn’t help him when he came to her door that night, with a split lip, cradling his arm close. Why she didn’t even ask what had happened, just said ‘I’m tired, we’ll talk in the morning’. Why she turned him away from her door even though he was bleeding, broken, hurting. She doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why she would do that. Why she wouldn’t help him. He’s her brother. She loved him. She loves him. It’s all so confusing all of a sudden. He shouldn’t love her back. Not after what she’s done, after what she hasn’t done.

The video fills the screen. It’s a side on view of John, and the other man. John is hurrying away somewhat, but the other man seems to be taking his time. He’s speaking in rapidly in Spanish (maybe) to John. A language which Martha knows John doesn’t understand. She’s proven wrong again when John replies in the same tongue, the same easy tone.

“Mr John Laurens is it?” a woman’s voice, high and clear rings out from behind whatever shaky screen this is being filmed on.

“Who’s asking?”   
The man speaks again in rapid Spanish. “Shut up Alex” says John, with an affectionate smile. The man, this ‘Alex’ pouts, but there’s mirth in his eyes. Something tells her that this is part of a routine they do, some kind of dance.

“My name is Tina Peterson, I’m a reporter for-“

“This is about that video” he slows to a halt. Alex stops too, mouth opening, as if about to speak. He then decides against it.

“What else would it be about?”

“How am I meant to know” He folds his arms in front of him. He’s wearing a pastel blue sweatshirt, with red paint on the cuffs. She marvels at how beautiful the colour looks against his skin. How beautiful he looks in general. He seems a lot calmer in this video. Last video he seemed so afraid that the words were spilling out. This is more controlled. Righteous fury.

“You said some interesting things in that video”

Alex snorts. “Did I?” John plays it coy.

“This is a direct quote here, ‘Guess you thought you’d beaten the faggot out of me’, some people are saying that you are accusing the Senator of South Carolina of Child Abuse.”

“I’m not accusing him of anything”   
Alex smirks, mouths something to John. It seems out of place, in this serious moment, when there’s so many exposed nerves, for him to laughing and smiling and telling jokes, but she supposes that she’s not in any position to judge. John takes Alex’s hand in his own.

“So it’s more of a saying, a metaphor, than something to be taken literally then, verbally beating, rather than physically”

“No, he beat the shit out of me, very regularly” John says it so nonchalantly that the reporter makes a tiny gasping noise in the back of her throat, Martha can see his fingers clasped around Alex’s, white knuckled, the only evidence betraying just how nervous he really is, “I was maybe eight when it started. Before that it would be a smack here and there, but at eight I really started acting like a fag, he had to beat the devil out”, John draws air quotes as he says that last bit.

Alex’s jaw is set. He doesn’t look nonchalant and lazily happy anymore. No now he is coiled up, with the same fury that John has.

“You realise that this accusation carries very serious weight, considering your father’s political position, and upcoming election campaign. This is the kind of thing which loses presidential elections for politicians.”

“Please, he’ll still have a loyal base of voters who want to see us more than beaten, voter who hate fags more than he does.” Alex retorts.

John cuts across him harshly, “Anyway I don’t have a father. If he gets to unclaim me as his son, I can do the same” John walks away.

He doesn’t look back.

Martha stares at the screen as it fades into black.

Henry is going to see this soon.

Very soon.

Fuck John.

What have you done?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander's chapter

Alex has never been good at dealing with broken people.  
He’s always too loud, too fast, too careless.   
He always ends up hurting them worse in the end.   
That’s why when John first stumbled into his life he kept his distance. A kid who flinched out loud noises and had a look in his eyes like he’d been shattered and beaten and bruised by the world. Alex didn’t have time to deal with that. He had his own problems, his own history. His life hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing either. How are two broken people supposed to fix each other?  
He’d kept his distance because John seemed fragile, seemed volatile. He kept his distance most of all because John reminded him of himself. The world had taken it out on both of them, the only difference was that when Alexander struggled to his feet and threw the next punch, John lay gasping and bloody on the mat. So he kept his distance. Shying away from a man who was terrifyingly familiar.

  
He had work to do, a scholarship to keep, a plan to follow. Even if the man was enticing, even if something about him caught Alex’s eye every lecture they had together. He stayed focused (at first).   
But John was broken and John was alone. He didn’t have friends, and Alex did and it felt wrong just to leave him, just to leave the man he could’ve been if things panned out differently. So at the end of a lecture one day, Alex walked right up to him and said

“I’m getting takeout with my friend at his flat tonight, do you wanna come?”

And John stared at him with those big eyes, and said, almost fearfully “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” He grabbed John’s hand, trying not to react as John visibly recoiled. _Careful Alex._ He tried to brush it off, and John looked at him again with those eyes, as if he was begging him not to notice, not to say anything. So Alex popped the pen lid with his teeth and scrawled his number on John’s palm. “I’ll see you there.”

And that was the beginning. The start of something different. Alex wasn’t good with broken people, didn’t like the effort they took, but he made an exception for John. Because John may have been broken, but he also made Alex smile, made Alex feel all warm and fuzzy. Made Alex feel a feeling which might have been love.

And months later when they were sprawled together in front of the TV, John whispered all soft and scared, “My dad used to hit me”

Alex doesn’t know what to say. He can’t say ‘I know, I guessed from the way you act, that look in your eyes, I guessed someone hurt you, your dad is a homophobic Republican I put two and two together”

So he deadpans “Want me to kill him”  
Feels light enough, but also with an edge. A weight. Also with a threat behind it.

John laughs but he sounds close to tears. “It feels like it’s me, you know, feels like my fault. He never hurt the others like that. It makes me feel bad. I feel like-“ he pauses, gathering himself “I feel all twisted up inside whenever I think of him. They always say when you forgive you move on. Am I meant to forgive him?”

“No” says Alex harshly, squeezing John’s hand. “It’s not your fault. Never. That’s the thing with us broken people, we always find a way to blame ourselves.”  
John cries. And Alex holds him. And they never speak of it again.

Until now.   
Until that rally and that video.   
Until now when everyone knows.   
Oh my God how does everyone know.   
It was John’s secret, John’s shame. He never really said it out loud. He wanted to forget. He blamed himself. And now everyone knows. It’s a secret that’s become a weapon. Everyone knows Henry Laurens abused his son, and in turn everyone knows that John Laurens was abused.   
And on campus they all give him those sickening looks, and Alex can’t tell which ones are worse. The looks of pity, as if John is a wounded creature. The looks as if John is broken. Alex knows he was guilty of thinking that once. And maybe John was broken, maybe he is, but their pity is sickly sweet, it feels suffocating, even for Alex who isn’t the subject. He can’t tell if the people who tut and murmur “that poor boy, I can’t imagine what he went through”, are worse than the people who hate. The jagged barely disguised disgust, followed by whispers that Alex is sure are full of loaded words and sentiments. He knows John can hear it all, although they both pretend they’re immune.

John pretends he’s as strong and nonchalant as he appears in the videos of him. And in turn Alex supplies the fury, the fuel to the fire. And he wonders how long John can keep on burning for.   
How long someone can keep going for before they collapse under the weight of it all. The trauma, the scrutiny, the fact that still in John’s head a little voice is muttering that this is all his fault.   
The TV blares. The results of the Republican Primaries are in. Henry Laurens (projected front runner) has lost. Henry Laurens has lost. Henry Laurens is not the Republican Candidate for the presidency.   
John switches off the TV.

Alex watches an interview later, with Henry Lauren’s sitting on a couch in a TV studio, trying his hardest to remain expressionless, but still with something (something like rage) pinching his features. He wonders if John still has nightmares about that face.

“What weight is there to the belief that the videos of your son, and the accusations he made impacted on your performance in the Primaries”

“I don’t have a son, Jack made that abundantly clear” Henry’s tone is ice, but Alex can taste that coiled up bitter rage. It terrifies him. “Jack slandered my name, and cost me my life’s work, after everything I’ve done for that boy. He’s ungrateful and he’s going to get what’s coming to him” His tone is low, hissing and threatening. He suddenly seems to come to his senses, sighing and composing himself.

Alex can see he lost control of himself there, if just for a few moments, no longer the polished politician. And that’s dangerous. He should’ve answered something like ‘John’s accusations shouldn’t have affected my performance because they weren’t true, he’s just a teenager acting out.’ If he’d said that, Alex would’ve been angry, John would’ve gone numb, the whole world would’ve weighed it up and made their own conclusions. But Henry Laurens didn’t say that. On the contrary, he put the final nail in his own coffin. The news anchor is frozen, and her silence allows time for Henry’s words to sink in. Now everybody knows it.   
Not everyone on campus.   
Just everyone.

John doesn’t even look at Alex when he gets home that evening. Alex can see he’s been crying, red eyed with tear tracks down his cheeks. Alex doesn’t address it. Doesn’t bring it up. Doesn’t say, ‘Hey your dad exploded on live TV and it made him look like a maniac’ doesn’t say ‘your dad meant every word he said and now I fear for your life, I think he could actually hurt you’. Because that would be crazy and insensitive.

Instead he says “Your dad is a headcase John”  
John bursts into tears.   
Alex wasn’t expecting that reaction, but he rolls with it.

“Hey, hey”, he presses his forehead against John’s forcing him to look him in the eyes, “I know it’s hurting real bad right now, but this is going to get better”

“How do you know” John chokes out. His whole body is shaking, wracked with painful shudders.

“I just do okay. Trust me love”

“I don’t know how to be brave”

It seems widely unrelated but Alex can tell that John’s brain is whirring away, at a million miles a minute. So he smiles “What the hell are you talking about, going through all of this crap, you’re the bravest guy I know”

“You’re just saying that”

“Oh I’m a real sweet talker aren’t I” Alex does his most seductive face. John laughs at that, and Alex can’t help but feel a bit triumphant. “Laughing at me now are we? I’ve never been so offended in my whole life”

“Shut up Alex” John grins at him, sadness (however momentarily) forgotten. “I’ve got work to do”

“What work”

“Just some art, I’m doing some deeper exploration inspired by my favourite artists at the moment she-“ And every word of it goes over Alex’s head. He’s never been an art guy, as much as he wishes he was. He wishes he got it, understood the deeper meaning behind the abstract swirls and colours. No. He’s a literal guy, through and through.

“You could do some life drawing of me?” he offers to John, doing his best to waggle his eyebrows.

John rolls his eyes “Piss off Alex”

  
And for just a snippet of time, Henry is all but forgotten.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha chapter

Martha has never seen his this angry.   
Never seen him actually lose control before.   
Well not seen, she’d be a fool to venture down into the kitchen. Into the battlezone. But she can hear it. Hear him screaming. Actually screaming. Raging.   
She can also hear thudding, and smashing. She wonders what heirloom will be broken next. Not that it matters. It’s just things. It’s all just things. It’s not like he’s breaking people anymore.   
She can make out a few words in the mess of sounds. None of them are pretty.   
This situation is anything but pretty.   
They were supposed to go to the White House. They were supposed to laugh and play and pose for the press. A perfect happy family. Five perfect little pale faces, smiling down at the American public from their house on capitol hill.   
It’s strange how one man, one child. Her brother. Her brother (who she refuses to be depersonalised from anymore) could snatch that dream away.   
No more State dinners. No more President Laurens.   
John took that all away. John stole that.   
And now Henry is out for blood. Out for his pound of flesh.   
Another crash.   
She’s scared. They’re all scared. Huddled in her room. She’s calling it a slumber party, pretending this is normal. It’s not normal for them. They’ve had the luxury of pretending for all of their lifetimes.   
Junior is old enough to understand, so is James. They’ve seen the news, no doubt endured school yard taunts. They understand that their father is a bad man, or at least that’s what the country believes. They understand that he hurt John. A brother that she hopes they remember as clearly as she does. A brother that she hopes they understand is broken and shattered and scared, not vengeful and cruel and deserving of punishment for the crime of daring to open his mouth.

“Why is Dad angry?” asks Mary. She’s sniffling slightly, almost afraid to cry.   
Martha smiles at her, or tries to, it’s hard when nothing makes any sense anymore. When your father is a stranger. When you can’t stop sneaking glances at your younger siblings, praying they don’t hate their own brother, their own flesh and blood for crimes he didn’t commit.

“He’s not going to get to be president anymore, so he’s a bit annoyed”.   
Understatement.

Mary’s face crinkles up as she tries to understand.   
“Why not?”

“Because of what John did.” Junior snipes back, tone thick with anger.

“Don’t talk about him like that Junior.” Martha replies quickly.

“Why not? He cost Dad everything.”

Martha sighs, it takes all the strength inside to keep herself from breaking. She turns away from Mary, motioning for Junior to do the same. “But Dad hit him. You do know that right.”

Something in Junior seems to break the moment that she says that. He sags against her, almost winded. “I know he did.”   
Of course, he knows. He’s 15 to Martha’s 17, he sees everything she sees, he hears everything she hears. And unlike James, still too young to truly understand, he gets it. Of course Junior knows. It’s so much easier, so much easier to get angry, to blame someone who doesn’t seem real. Someone abstract. Doesn’t seem as close. It’s easier to blame John than to admit that they’re living under the same roof as a monster.

“I think I should go and visit him. Go and see him where he is now.”

“Dad would kill you if he found out”  
Another smash punctuates that statement with a very real implication.

“I don’t want him to think his family hates him.”

“We don’t really know him Martha. I don’t know why you’re just now pretending that we did.”

James speaks up, “All I remember about him was that he was angry and sad. He used to be nice, when we were little, but the bigger we got, the sadder he got. He never wanted to play aeroplanes with me anymore.” Then he seems a little embarrassed “Not that I’ve played that game in ages. That’s for little kids, and I’m basically a grown up now.”

And it’s true. Martha barely saw John in the last two years he lived at home. He was either out or holed up in his room (nursing bruises and worse), with no time to spare for his annoying little siblings. When Frances was born, he wouldn’t even hold her. Wouldn’t even touch her.   
Martha was three years younger than him, but she felt like he was worlds away.   
She’d complain about her stupid moody brother at school, and her friends would roll their eyes and laugh, and say “Mine too! Seventeen year old boys are so annoying”. But something always itched. Something just below the laughs and jibes. Something which said that her 17 year old brother was isolating himself for a very different reason. The night with the split lip proved it. She ignored the proof. Couldn’t stand it. And he slipped further away.

“We don’t really know him. But I would like to!” Martha tries to put a positive lilt in her voice. She fails. It just cracks pathetically.

Frances smiles dozily up at her as she speaks. She has no idea about the destruction going on below her. Her hearing aid dangles from the side of her head, and Martha reaches down, tucking it back into place, smiling affectionately back at her. Even with the aids on, the doctors think she can only hear 30% of what’s going on. It’ll be more when she’s old enough for a cochlear implant. Henry would pay any amount of money for his little princess. Martha is suddenly struck with the realisation that when John left home, they didn’t even know that Frances was deaf. That Frances has no idea who John is. No idea at all. There’s no photos of him. No mention. As far as she’s concerned, John never even existed.

_-How many big brothers do you have Frances?- _signs Martha.  
Frances smiles that wide smile, and points with her chubby little finger _-Two-_   
_-No. You have three. Three big brothers-  
-What?-  
-His name is John. He lives far away now, but he’s very nice. Very funny-  
-Can I see him- _Frances starts wiggling where she’s sat, excitement overcoming her.   
_-Soon.-  
_That’s a promise that Martha really hopes she’ll get to keep.

When she goes downstairs, she can smell it on the air. The liquor hanging thick and fast, swirling in the air with the musty staleness of a room which hasn’t had the windows thrown open in far too long. It’s darker in his office than she remembered. Hasn’t been here in years. The last time was when she curled up all small and crumpled under Henry’s desk during a game of hide and seek. She remembers the ice in Henry’s voice when he caught John peeking around the doorframe. It’s strange how that now John’s on her mind, he’s infiltrated every memory. His lonely eyes, his haunted smile.   
Henry is sitting at his desk, staring at the wall. Just staring. Expressionless.

“Dad?” it’s soft and tender.   
It’s ‘I still love my Dad even if he hurts people. Even if he hurts people I love’. It’s scared. She’s scared. He’s never laid a finger on any of them, but he’s different now. Corrupted and volatile. And broken. Her dad is broken.

“Yes Martha?” his tone is clipped and tired, the same voice as when he was up all night working on a Bill, talking to his colleagues in low voices. There’s no Bills left to work on now. There’s nothing left for him. For the first time, Martha wonders what that means for her. What that means for all of them in the long run. Their bubble, their perfect secure little future is slipping. And fast.

“Let’s get you something to eat, okay Dad?”

Henry straightens, turning towards her. There’s something wicked in his eye, something that makes every nerve in her body scream ‘run, run, run’. She can’t seem to move   
“Are you patronising me young lady?” He’s on his feet, stepping closer and closer. She’s cornered, boxed in against the wall, like a caged animal. “Careful, girl”, he all but snarls.

Her voice trembles “I was just trying to help”. Tears prickle in her eyes, hot and fast. She doesn’t like this, she doesn’t like this one bit. She wonders if this stranger is the man that John knew all along.

“Well don’t. I don’t need anybody’s pity.” He turns away, “This will all blow over soon enough”  
The mask is firmly back on. He’ll unravel regardless.

He seems surprised to hear that he sent the staff home, as if he doesn’t remember it all. Martha pretends that doesn’t worry her, just like when she pretends that his fingers brushing over hers when they both reach for the milk doesn’t make her whole body shiver. They’re back to pretending everything is normal. Back to eating a family breakfast, with Henry at the head of the table, facing the empty chair where her mother used to sit.   
She wonders why losing the woman he loved didn’t break him. Losing the woman he loved didn’t break him, but losing his job did?  
And she sits and stares at the man she used the be proud to call her father.

At school she’s keeping her head down, pretending she doesn’t exist. Picking at the hem of the skirt she’s forced to wear, a symbol of the thousands her father pays for her to sit among her ‘peers’ between these four walls. They’re not her peers today. Today they’re hungry, vicious, cruel. Today they want to see her bleed. So she sits, and she waits for her friends (who are coming, they are coming), and pretends to be busy. Prays no one speaks, or even looks in her direction.

As if she could read Martha’s mind, one of the girls in the year above saunters over, bold as anything.

“Are you Martha? Martha Laurens?”  
It’s a rhetorical question. Everyone knows who she is by now. She’s no longer a face in the crowd.  
The girl disregards her lack of response “Not to be rude, I mean I hope you don’t think I’m being rude or intrusive or whatever, but I mean we’ve all seen the news, and I guess we were just wondering, well, does your dad hit you?”

“What.” The response is automatic, monotonous and low.

“I mean, does he? We already know he hits your fag brother, but—"

“What did you just call John?” Martha is furious. She feels like her skin is burning, the air in her lungs boiling in her chest.

The girl seems affronted “It’s a descriptive word. He’s a fag so I call him a fag, besides, what does it matter what I call him, you aren’t answering the question.”

“I’ll answer your question when you stop using slurs to refer to my brother.”

“But see that’s the funny part, and not funny like ‘ha ha’ either. None of us even knew you had a brother. Like, how come none of us even knew he existed until he made the headlines?”

“What you do or don’t know about me is none of my business” Martha replied between gritted teeth, trying her best to keep her cool. Trying to remind herself that this girl doesn’t mean any harm. She doesn’t mean any harm. Right?

“Does he hit you, yes or no, come on, we’re dying to know whether it’s just the mulatto”

Martha thinks for a moment that she must have misheard the girl. Must have mistaken what she said for some other world. That a high schooler in the 21st century can’t be talking like an 18th century slaveowner. But the girl smiles back at her, simpering sweet, awaiting her answer.   
Martha considers it for a moment, weighing up her options. Then she punches the girl, square in the nose. There’s a moment of silence, an intake of air as the girl is winded from the impact.

That’s when Martha launches.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for abuse and homophobia

John can’t stand it.   
Alex is doting. Alex is keeping just the right amount of distance. Alex cares, but not in a way that makes his skin crawl.   
He can’t stand it.   
Because for all of pretences, Alex is so clearly walking on eggshells. He catches those sideways looks every so often. Looking at John as if he’s ruined, as if he’s brave, as if he hung the moon and tore it from the sky and smashed it to bits all at once. It’s like a strange jumble of all the feelings he’s feeling, all the feelings everyone is feeling, and he can’t stand to see them on Alex’s face. He can’t stand to see them clouding the features of the man he might love, the man he does love. 

  
Alex cares. Alex says the right things. Alex hides his concern behind a mask of mirth.   
Alex can’t hide that far off look in his eyes when he thinks no one is paying attention.  
Alex can’t hide the fact that he looks at John differently now.   
John can’t hide the fact that he notices. 

  
They’re sitting. Intertwined bodies but minds apart. He didn’t used to mind it. Didn’t used to mind knowing Alex, but not Knowing Alex. Now he despises the distance. Hates how alone one sideways glance can make him feel. Hates how raw and open he suddenly is. 

  
“It doesn’t change anything you know”, he says suddenly, the words which have been yearning to burst out all this time. 

  
“What doesn’t?” Alex doesn’t even look up from his work. Can’t he recognise the importance?

  
“This, this whole thing. With my dad and the news and everything.”

  
“John”, Alex closes the lid of his laptop, and turns to face him, eye to eye. Man to man. Ignores the voice in his head sneering (you’ll never be a man). “You can’t just wish it all away”

  
“I’m not trying to.”

  
“So what’s this about” Alex pauses, collecting himself, “I mean what’s this really about.”

  
“I miss us, I miss the us before, when it was easy and you didn’t look at me like you felt sorry for me.” There it is. Out in the open. The ball is in Alex’s court. 

  
“I do feel sorry for you” John makes this sound in the back of his throat, it sounds like something between them just died. “No, not like that, I feel sorry because, because it’s something that no one should have to live through, and you’re being so brave, and it isn’t fair”

  
“What’s not fair is me feeling like it makes you care about me less”

  
“John, hey John look at me. None of this crap could make me care about you any less. It doesn’t make me love you less, it makes me love you different”

  
“Different?” He feels like a child, being coaxed out of sulking. 

  
“Because you’re different. You’re braver, but also more open. I hate the way they look at you, and I’m sorry if I looked at you like that.” 

  
“You can’t help how you look at people.”

  
Alex makes this sound, almost like he’s exasperated, and John’s scared for a moment, scared that he’s being pathetic and stupid and paranoid and that Alex is getting sick of him, planning ways to get rid of him, because everyone gets sick of him eventually. He’s insufferable. He knows that well enough by now. But then Alex speaks, “I’m sorry if you thought I was looking at you like that because I don’t love you. It’s because I’m scared for you. I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know how long you’ll last. But I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  
“I don’t think anyone’s ever loved me before”

  
Alex pulls him closer, and John cries with his face buried in Alex’s chest. He cries and he clings to Alex like a child, like Alex is a life raft and he’s drowning. Why does he feel like he’s drowning again? Why is Alex the only thing keeping him from slipping under?

  
That night John dreams of his father.   
He dreams of the devil himself.   
He dreams of that day that John went from being something Henry was ashamed of, too feminine, too sensitive, too much himself and not enough Henry. The day he went from being something Henry was ashamed of to something Henry was disgusted by. 

  
He dreams of that day, but he doesn’t dream of it how it happened. He dreams of it through Henry’s eyes. He sees himself in flashing images. Younger. More fearful. Weaker. He sees himself laying on the floor, winded from the first hit. He doesn’t feel anything, and even though he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know for sure what it’s like to be in the mind of a monster, he thinks this might be close. He thinks the most monstrous feeling might be the absence of any feeling at all. And all at once, he’s kicking and kicking and kicking. And his own broken body is jerking around on the floor, screaming and sobbing, but all he feels is the ice cold apathy, all he feels is disgust, disconnection. It’s like he can’t even recognise himself. And then he’s pulling himself to his feet, hissing ice cold words he can barely hear over the ringing in his ears. And he can’t even tell which version of his ears are ringing, whether it’s the broken him, the bleeding him, the lamb ready for the slaughter, or whether it’s the executioner, leading him to the block. He’s dragging himself down the stairs, to the patio out back. He feels the strain of his arm muscles, the sharp pain as his ankles hit against the stone steps. Then the smell of chlorine fills his lungs. The pool. It’s getting more and more splintered now, more blurry. And suddenly his head is plunged underwater. He’s being drowned and drowning himself all at once. He feels his hands gripping a shirt collar, rough against the struggling body beneath him. He feels rough fingers against the nape of his neck pressing him under. He can’t see, he can’t scream. The water is ice, the water is fire. He watches himself struggle, he feels himself die. His body goes still. And he’s standing there, staring at himself, submerged, those eyes still open underwater. And through both visions, all he can see in that moment is green. 

  
Alex is shaking him awake, Alex is holding him close. Alex is telling him that it’s all going to be okay. Alex is lying.   
John pushes him away. Then he feels so alone. So alone that it hurts.   
And he doesn’t want to carry that day with him anymore. Doesn’t want to carry it alone. He’s so scared to let the words out, but so sure that nothing can make this worse. Nothing can make Alex look at him more differently than he already does. 

  
“He tried to drown me”

  
“What?” Alex is trying to stay cool. Trying to stay calm and collected. Alex is trying and failing. 

  
“He caught me… um… he caught me and he knew what I was and then… I don’t…” John tries to choke out the words between sobs, “I don’t remember… but I was underwater… and I was screaming…” he lets out a dark chuckle, harshly punctuating the pain, “in the pool where I learnt how to do fucking backstroke” 

  
“Fucking hell John.”

  
“I was fifteen. Fifteen and I remember it like it’s happening right now.”  
Alex pulls him closer. Wrapping him up in loving arms. It’s not enough.   
“Why would he do that? What did I do?” 

  
“You didn’t do anything John. It’s not your fault.”

  
And even though he knows Alex is right, deep down. Fundamentally, Alex is saying the right thing, he still feels as if he’s pandering.

  
Fuck.

  
He was fifteen years old. Fifteen. A child. Barely anything yet. Henry had always been harsh on him, heavy handed. He’d smack John around, tell him it was for his own good. Making him tougher, making him better, making him into more of a man. Before that day, the worse thing Henry did was when he used his belt. John couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t make sense of why something that would earn Junior a telling off would earn him 5 strikes. But it was the reality he lived in. Clearly he’d done something wrong along the way, something that made him deserve it. But on that day, everything changed. On that day, he realised just why he did deserve it. Why it was his fault after all. 

  
_He walked home from school past the skate park every day. Shoved his hands deep in his pockets and pretended he didn’t even notice them whizzing up and down the ramps. Pretended they weren’t simultaneously everything he wanted and everything he wanted to be. Then one day, over his music, he heard one of them calling. _

  
_‘Hey private school!’ _   
_The way he said it, it wasn’t unfriendly. It was more descriptive than anything else. _   
_He turned around, pulling his earphones out. _   
_‘Fancy a smoke?’_

_The guy was beautiful. A mess of brown hair, a ring in his nose, cigarette tucked behind his ear. _

_John could barely speak, John could barely breathe. But he managed to choke out the words “Yeah, alright”, sounding nonchalant as anything. _

_The guy lead him round the back of the ramps, and there was a whole group of them, ripped jeans and branded t-shirts, tiny hoops in their ears and chipped black nail paint._   
_“This is-“ and the beautiful guy paused, to let him say his name. _

_“John”_

_The group mumbled out a few pleasantries, and then the beautiful boy lit up what John knew was a joint. He didn’t say anything. Too afraid to seem uncool. _   
_He wanted to shift his blazer off his shoulders, but he knew the welt from Henry’s belt was still red and angry on his arm. He left it on, trying to relax into himself. _   
_The weed filled him with a funny feeling, but he tried to shake it off. The crowd, the bundle of strangers dispersed, either hitting the ramps or heading to wherever skaters go when they’re not at the skate park. He learnt that the beautiful boy’s name was Jasper, and that he went to the public school down the road. _

_Then he said “Why did you stop me and talk to me then?”_

_And Jasper responded, “because I think you’re fit”_

_John didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never had those twisty feelings inside reciprocated, or even vocalised before. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. _

_And then suddenly he was kissing Jasper and Jasper was kissing him, and they were all tangled up in each other. It was messy and foreign and strange. But it was also perfect. _

_He was so wrapped up in Jasper, that he didn’t even notice. To this day he still doesn’t know who took the picture, who posted it and where. He’s seen it of course, the two of them wrapped up together, Jasper’s face hidden, shielded by his mess of hair, but John, John’s uniform, John’s features clearly visible. _

_He was kissing a boy. He was a faggot. And for a brief moment in time, everyone in the world could see. Henry saw. Henry knew. Henry buried the picture, somehow. No one mentioned it at school. No one mentioned what John was, the monstrous secret that hid beneath. Henry made him feel it. Made him feel as disgusting on the outside as he clearly was on the inside. _

_When John was finally well enough to go back into school, he took a different route home.   
Longer, lonelier. He never saw Jasper again. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and let me know what y'all think!


	6. Chapter 6

Martha stares at the screen. The room is dark, a slither of light emerging from the gap in the curtains. She doesn’t even have the energy to get up and fix it. It’s like the events of the past few weeks have all come crashing down on her all at once. Like a lifetime of pretending is finally over. She’s never felt so exhausted.   
When she looks in the mirror at the sickly green bruises on her face, the shapes of fists of girls who might have once been her peers, she wonders if this is even a fragment of what John felt. Of what her brother, who she misses more and more every day, felt after Henry was finished with him.

Her father couldn’t even look at her when he picked her up from school. And the principle’s voice, silky smooth, “understandable, considering the circumstances”. Insinuating something. Insinuating everything. Her father’s white knuckled grip on the pen as he signed the form left her throat dry. A little voice in her head murmured that she was in for it now. He was going to make her pay. She tried to push it away. Henry had never laid a finger on any of them. Only John. Always John. But she got that feeling, that twisty mushy feeling deep in her gut, that things were about to change.

“It’s only a 6 day suspension Martha, and I expect you to use this time to clear your head. You’re clearly not a bad kid, you’ve just been led astray”. A practiced line, depersonalised. She wonders how many good kids just snap. She wonders what the reason is. 6 days in the house alone with her father. A shiver goes down her spine.   
“I’m sorry ma’am. It won’t happen again”. She stares at her shoes, and her own face stares back at her, distorted in patent black. It’s all gotten distorted, all of a sudden.

Henry walks three paces ahead of her. Gets in the car and starts the engine without even looking her way. There’s no words exchanged between father and daughter on the way back. He doesn’t ask what happened, or if she’s okay, or who did this. He doesn’t seem to care at all.

“Go to your room.” is all she gets when they get home. And then he’s gone, and his office door slams behind him. She’s not sure when the crying starts. Whether it’s as she stumbles up the stairs, as the hot water pounds down in the shower, or as she lays on the floor in her room, hair still wet, eyes still wet, staring at the screen.

The profile is private, but if she squints she can see him there in the profile picture, hand tucked under his chin, beaming at the camera, with messy hair and paint smeared on his cheeks. There’s no bio, no other information about him that she can find, no other aspect of himself laid bare for the whole world to see. It would be so easy, so easy to reach across the void, to close the gulf between them. Her finger hovers over ‘Send message’ for a moment too long. Just click. Just click.

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ she wonders.

Then that little voice inside ‘What if he hates you, what if he ignores you what if he wants nothing to do with you’.

She presses the button.   
To hell with it.   
John may hate her, but he can’t despise her more than she despises herself in this moment.

* * *

“What?” Alex’s brow furrows as he sees the expression on John’s face. “What?” he repeats louder, as if somehow John just didn’t hear the last time.

John doesn’t look up from his phone, his face contorted between hurt and longing and fearful. Alex wonders if one of those reporters is bombarding him again, intent on pouring salt in the wound. He wonders if this is somehow unrelated, an old friend back in touch, a celebrity dead. It’s unlikely. Everything is related to that now. They live in the prison that Henry Laurens built all those years ago. Still, for a moment he imagines that John is staring in shock at the screen because he won some money, or saw a cute animal and that Alex is just really bad at reading facial expressions. Maybe the look on his face is just elation, and Alex has never seen him so happy before.   
So as his mind runs wild, Alex doesn’t ask again, just stands in front of John, waiting for him to gather himself enough to speak.

“A message…” John slows, catching his breath as if suddenly winded. “From my sister.”  
Of course. Of course it’s Henry. Of course it’s family past and warped pain. Alex wishes he could tear it all away, make them all forget, live in a world where John is normal and not crippled by his past, even for one day. Alex wishes that John would smile, and it not be a mask.

“Let’s see?” It’s a question, curious but still painfully aware of the delicate peace between them. Alex wants to read it, wants to devour, wants to know every last morsel of John, but he knows that this is private, this is personal. More so than for most.   
John hands over his phone without protest.

“Hey John, long time no speak. That one’s my fault. I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently, and I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I know words are empty and nothing can make up for the fact that I wasn’t there when you needed me most, but I’m really truly sorry.”  
Another message, sent 3 minutes later.   
“I would love to see you, we all would. But I understand if that’s not something you want to do. Let me know, all my love, Martha.”

When Alex looks up, John is crying. The kind of big ugly sobs that wrack your whole body, like he couldn’t hold it in anymore. Alex slumps onto the sofa beside him, pulling John close so that they slot together, arms and legs and bodies intertwined. Alex wishes he just squeeze John a little tighter and make all the pain go away.

“What are you thinking.” He doesn’t want to assume anything, doesn’t want to put this in the category of good news or bad news, not yet at least.

John doesn’t even try to answer, if anything he sobs a little harder. And Alex thinks he might get it. The confusion, the good and bad memories all mixed up and jumbled. John doesn’t even know what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking.

“Can you reply?” John asks in a barely there whisper. Just lips moving against Alex’s shoulder where his head rests.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say it’s okay.” John chokes back a hiccupping sob.

Alex thinks he knows why John is asking him to do this. Alex has always had a way with words, but these weren’t his words. Not his truth to say. This is so much easier for John if he doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t have to do it himself. It’s easier to disconnect. And that’s the last thing this situation needs.

John continues “Say I miss her and I want to see her, and I love her”

Alex kisses the top of John’s head, smoothing his curls with the back of his hand. Swallows his worries. Swallows his pride. John needs this, and that’s all Alex needs to know.   
“I’ll write it, and you let me know if it’s okay.”

Martha’s phone pings.

“John’s really broken up over this, so he asked me (Alex, his boyfriend) to write this for him, He wants you to know that it’s okay. He misses you too, and he wants to see you soon. He loves you”.

“Don’t mess this up”. 


	7. Chapter 7

Martha is standing outside of a stranger’s apartment.   
Martha is standing outside of her brother’s apartment.   
It’s the same thing, when you boil it down.  
She triple checks the address on her phone, trying not to blanch at the painfully few messages they exchanged before she just said, ‘fuck it’ and paid the train fare. Trying not to blanch at the fact that she is at her brother’s door, and she doesn’t know where they stand. Doesn’t know if he hates her, doesn’t know if he forgives her. She just… doesn’t know.   
And she’s too impulsive, too reckless and impatient to find out.   
She figured that she might as well round that suspension to a solid seven days of school missed. She doesn’t think it’s possible to disappoint her father any more than he’s already disappointed, not when he’s essentially quit being a father altogether.   
So here she is, in a city she doesn’t know, in a building she doesn’t know, outside the door of someone she doesn’t know.

And he never said yes. He never actually agreed to let her come and visit. He sent her the address because she asked, under the guise of sending a letter or a card or something. Imagine his shock when he opens his front door, and his estranged sister is standing there instead.   
She thought about asking him if it was okay, just making sure, the whole train journey over (and she had plenty of hours to think), but the idea of asking just invited the possibility of a ‘no’, and Martha couldn’t bear that. She knows that she’s not the victim of this situation, and that John’s feelings take priority, but habits are hard to kick, and Martha Laurens has a whole life of being selfish and entitled to pay back.   
Just ring the bell. Just press the buzzer.   
Nobody’s questioned her presence in the building yet, even though she feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb, with none of the crisp nonchalance of the other residents, none of the casual purpose. She’s so rigid and brittle that she feels like she’s about to shatter.   
Just ring the bell.   
She’s dragging this out, being dramatic, like Mary when she stubs her toe. She’s screaming and kicking and wailing and dragging her heels, and she has no right to do so. No right at all. Not when this whole half-baked plan was her stupid idea in the first place.   
Her finger’s shaking as she lifts it.   
She’s not sure whether she hopes this is the right apartment or not.   
She wants to see John. She’s scared to see John. She’s scared to go home. She’s scared of being the person she was. She isn’t sure who she is.   
She rings the bell. 

* * *

  
Alex thinks that Martha sending that first message to John was simultaneously a blessing and curse.   
He’s read their whole conversation, all of their stilted back and forth, not sounding like siblings in the slightest (not that Alex is one to judge, with his abysmal family record). He’s read them because John is barely treading water as it is, what with the press and the scrutiny, and the images of Henry’s cold eyes following them wherever they go. It’s dying down slightly, that’s the beauty of the news cycle, Alex supposes. The constant rotation of news, to capture the ever shortening attention of the American public, coupled with some celebrity death, and economic dip? The name Henry Laurens is cropping up less and less often. He’s old news, left behind. The world has all but forgotten.   
But how can they forget? How can they be expected to forget when John is damaged beyond repair. Alex thinks that he might be damaged worse than when they first met. When John was all barely masked flinches, and fearful eyes, stained in sadness and self loathing. At least then it was a secret. And John must be a Laurens after all, because like the rest of the Laurens Family, he sure does love his secrets.

Martha messaging him is like rubbing salt in a wound. Alex thinks that’s the perfect metaphor, because it hurts. It hurts John so badly that sometimes he can’t even get out of bed. Hurts him so badly that nearly every day ends with John clinging to Alex, like he’s scared Alex is about to run out of the door. Clinging to Alex like a scared child. Like he doesn’t have enough strength to be alone with his thoughts for even a moment. Martha is hurting John, like rubbing salt right into a cut, but at the same time, Alex thinks this temporary pain (because it has to be temporary, there’s no way John can be hurting this badly forever), this temporary pain might end up with the cut healing better. It’s like disinfecting it, cleaning out all the puss and the muck, so that John can finally be better.

Martha’s sweet, in a stilted, seventeen year old girl (who’s sheltered and shielded and has just now had to face the realities of her family) way. She says nice things, but the nice things still make John cry.   
Like a picture of a little toddler, with blonde ringlets and bright blue eyes, who looks just like those paintings of cherubs on the walls of churches Alex wishes he could go to. John cries that night, telling Alex in this raspy voice that the little toddler is his sister, and he’s never even held her, never even spoke to her. And he’ll probably never get the chance, despite all of Martha’s hollow promises that everyone wants to see him.   
Like when she says ‘sorry for not doing more’, and John says in this thick voice, ‘she was only 14 Alex. And she was young for her age. What could she have done?’.

And Alex doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to make John okay, how to make John and Martha whole again (if they ever even were in the first place). He doesn’t know what to do.   
And for Alex, not knowing doesn’t happen very often.   
But Martha has to be a good thing for John. Because Alex knows, even now, that him by himself, isn’t enough to stop John from sinking. John needs something more, and maybe Martha is that something? Or maybe she isn’t.   
And there it is, another thing that Alex doesn’t know. 

* * *

John is splayed on the sofa, picking paint from his nails.   
Alex is in the kitchen, attempting to cook from the smell of it. John wonders if he put the batteries back in the smoke detector since the last time he ‘cooked’, or if he just put them in his pocket, and ruined them in the washing machine, as he’s done too many times before.   
For how smart Alex is, he can simultaneously be incredibly stupid.   
And then John feels bad for even thinking that, because Alex has been so patient, and so kind with him. Alex holds him close and helps him write messages to Martha (who needs help writing their own sister messages?). Alex keeps him busy and occupied, tries not to let his mind wander too far. Wander like it is doing now.

Then suddenly, as if on cue, the doorbell rings.

“Is that Herc?” Asks Alex hopefully from the kitchen. He lost $20 earlier in a game of cards with Hercules, and John knows how desperate he is to get it back, disregarding the fact that if Alex played another round, he’d end up bankrupt. That man doesn’t know the meaning of ‘poker face’.

“Nah, I don’t think so… We aren’t expecting anyone.”

“Then don’t answer. I don’t want to serial killed.”  
Alex has been watching far too many true crime documentaries. John can’t stand them. The blood and the gore, hell even the mention of violence is enough to make his stomach turn. He needs to get a grip, get a handle on his emotions, before he drives everyone away with his needy sensitive bullshit.

He doesn’t vocalise any of that. Instead he says: “I’m way too tough to get serial killed.”

“Famous last words!”   
Before John can reply, the doorbell rings again.   
“A desperate serial killer? The plot thickens”

John rolls his eyes, and then saunters over to open the door. He knows it’s probably not anything bad, because their building is residents only, and it’s a decent enough neighbourhood, but he’s still acting much more recklessly than he should, especially when his name is still on people’s lips, for all the wrong reasons.   
He pulls the door open.   
Oh.   
Oh. 

It’s her. Holy shit. It’s her. There she is, nervously picking at the hem of her skirt. His sister. His sister is here, outside his door.

“Hey” She says. She doesn’t sound how he remembered. Her voice is huskier, sadder.

“Hey”, he replies dumbly, before his brain has quite had a chance to catch up.

“Sorry to show up unannounced…” and then she trails off, seemingly unable to offer a worthy explanation.

And he’s unable to verbalise a worthy response. Unable to vocalise the fact that, it is sort of strange that she’s just here. Unable to vocalise the fact that he missed her so much. Unable to vocalise the fact that he doesn’t know her at all. And because he’s a coward, and he can’t seem to talk about his feelings today, he says, “Nah, don’t worry about it.” His tone is so nonchalant, it’s as if he was just presented with the weather, rather than a piece of him that’s been carved out and crushed.

They stand for a moment. Frozen in place, with this massive gulf of secrets, and lies and guilt and shame and differences between them. And then all of a sudden they’re six and nine years old again, climbing trees in the garden in their Sunday best, tearing and staining them on the branches, wild and free. Suddenly they’re eight and eleven years old, having water fights in the pool (that fucking pool), laughing themselves dizzy. It’s like the gulf is bridged, like for a moment, they’re the same. Even though everything is different. She’s seventeen and white, and presumably straight, and sheltered (Alex’s word, not his), and her father loves her. He’s twenty and brown and gay and he’s been through so much that sometimes he feels more broken than whole, and his father despises him. They don’t live in the same world. They don’t exist in the same plane. Expect, for a moment they do. The years melt away, and they find home again in each other’s arms. And it feels like something missing just finally slides into place.

He’s not sure how long they embrace for, wrapped up in each others arms. It’s not like when he holds onto Alex, desperate and cloying, like Alex is a life raft and he’s stuck in a storm. This is like him and Martha are both battling to keep from going under, like they both need this as desperately as each other. And maybe they do. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know her. But he’d like to. 

“What’s that smell?” asks Martha softly, into his shoulder where her head is resting.

John inhales, and this acrid stench hits him square in the face. “That’ll be Alex’s cooking.”

Alex has clearly been hovering over them, because he takes that moment to brightly interrupt, announcing, “Dinner is ready!”

“Would you like to stay? We can order takeout?”  
John glances down, catching sight of Martha’s bag, bigger than a rucksack, but smaller than a suitcase, clearly for at least one night. It’s a good thing he offered to let her in then.

“Takeout? How dare you John. I’ve been slaving over a hot stove, and this is the thanks I get?!”

John sees Martha staring at them, with this slightly odd look in her eyes, which he hopes is just bemusement at their banter, where they get a bit too snipey, and a bit too rough around the edges sometimes, because that sort of thing is okay, as long as it’s a joke.

Alex takes a heaped spoonful of whatever the contents of the pan are, smacking his lips at first, and then dissolving into a spluttering cough.   
“Let’s order Chinese.”

And it’s the perfect kind of evening, curled up in front of the TV, with the volume switched down low, so it’s barely background noise, bellies full of actually edible food. Alex has his head on John’s lap, and he’s asleep, or at least he’s pretending to be.

Martha is sitting in the armchair across from him, and they’re exchanging stories and anecdotes. John tells Martha about the time Alex kicked Jefferson in the face (despite the foot in height difference between them). Alex’s lips twitch into a small smile at that, and John resists the urge to roll his eyes. He really has no concept of a poker face. Martha tells John about the time that Junior rode down the stairs in a laundry basket and broke not only his ankle, but also a vase.

The family stories make his stomach sort of clench up. Not in a bad way necessarily, because as he cards his fingers through Alex’s hair, he realises that he has his own family, a family he’s made on his own, far from the Laurens household. And as he stares at Martha, smiling as she gets to the good part of her latest story, and starts doing these exaggerated hand gestures to illustrate his point, he realises that Henry Laurens aside (as if he can just discount years of trauma and emotional baggage), he maybe has something of a family inside in the Laurens household after all.

John may not have a father, but for the first time in a while, he has a sister.   
And for the first time in a while, he feels that fluttering feeling in his stomach, one which is akin to hope.  
And that’s the strangest feeling of them all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not 100% happy ending it like this, but I've sort of lost my grip on the tone/ voice of this story (probably because I keep starting new ones) so I wanted to finish it up while it still resembled something like what I imagined. 
> 
> Also I looked at a map of trains in America just to see if you could get a train from like one state to another and it made me so angry why are there no trains? Why is America so massive but it still has basically no trains it's stupid.
> 
> Anyways... 
> 
> Comment and let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment yall


End file.
